DAVID ROGERS: Encounters on the Western Slopes

David Rogers

Encounters on the Western Slopes

© 2003 David Rogers (634479085550)

CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.

(About MP3 downloads at CD Baby)

Songs sung in the folk style with virtuoso fingerstyle guitar accompaniment

notes

David Rogers, classical guitarist and singer-songwriter, has been performing in public for over 30 years. He was exposed from early childhood to the classical music masters Bach, Handel, Beethoven and Mozart; and later exposed to some of the world's finest folk and popular music in his teens and young adulthood. He has processed these influences into a life's work of dedicated music making, performing in thousands of venues.

Though his primary music focus is as a soloist, Dave has performed with such diverse music groups as the Eugene Opera Chorus, a Balkan music dance band, and a blues-rock band. He graduated from Southern Oregon University with a Bachelor's degree in classical guitar performance in 1991; and graduated from the University of Oregon in 1996 with a Masters degree in classical music history and ethnomusicology, and wrote his masters thesis on Turlough O'Carolan, the 18th Century blind Irish harper.

WORLD CLASSICAL GUITAR

Combine virtuoso classical guitar technique with a wide knowledge of world music, and the result is the amazingly versatile guitar music repertoire of David Rogers. Here are settings of Irish and Scottish music, Balkan Gypsy dances, and classical guitar masterworks from all over Europe and the Americas, punctuated with amazingly lively rhythm, with sensitive and expressive quality of tone.

SONGS OF THE NEW WEST

Perhaps nothing is more exhilarating to a quality of life than to live in an area both surrounded with scenic beauty and full of inspired, creative artists and musicians. I am lucky to have lived most of my adult life in Eugene and Ashland, Oregon. I grew up in California and the Midwest, and spent a part of my life hitch-hiking around. My songs represent that experience. Bigfoot is a metaphor for a lumbering but not especially socially adept being that ends up hitch-hiking down the road in one of my songs, heading for Alaska where the crowds don't hem him in. People I have known have roles in some of my other songs. So have towns and places. In my 30 years as a performer, I still approach venues in a very unassuming way; my energy is open and just inquires, like an adult kid, "Can I play?" I avoid name-dropping because I don't like to tie onto others in an artificial way. In one of my songs I make fun of the process of name-dropping, whether of "the teacher who taught you or the boss who bought you." I want to be as independent as my songs are, but that doesn't mean I want to live apart and adrift, let alone be anti-social. As I sing in my song "Encounters on the Western Slopes", I'll build bridges to the ones I love best and hang upon my hopes. I have been playing in coffeehouses, concert halls, bars, restaurants, schools, nursing homes, bookstores, streetcorners, nuthouses and jails now for 30 years, and try my best to cut through the stormy mundane with a repertoire of music and songs that both sears and caresses. I see our society sick from too much greed, inequality, jealousy, apathy, cruelty, fear and insecurity. The "New West" I am referring to is an increasingly crowded, inflated environment which has too often meant trading in old problems for worse new ones. As my friend Andrew wrote, we are getting nudged in with congested crowds that are like hatchery fish as opposed to native fish: greedy, voracious, hemmed-in beings with no instinct for living within the means of the environment or having any sense of protocol and balance with others in their stream. We need to create more things that address these issues. By "we" I mean any of us in the community who wish to share our talents in an inspired way. I remember when I ran across a group of performers who didn't want to encourage any more talented folks to share their work on stage, because "there are too many people." One person explained that they were serious artists looking for a 'chance' or a 'following' and complained that too many people wanted to perform but nobody wanted to listen. But the solution to that problem is not to have fewer good performers but to have better listeners. The entire notion that we need less inspiration in the many so that we can gratify the egos of a few is utterly wrong. 'There are those who writhe in terror and hate at the strengths and the talents of others, imagining it's all at their own expense, until one finally discovers: it's not in the struggle to control the stage, it's not in the fight over making it, it's all in our lives and our love and our work, and all the rest is faking it.' We all need to believe in ourselves. But it's only O K to have a big ego if you have a big enough soul to accommodate it.


Critical Praise for David Rogers'
Performances and Recordings

"Every time you're about to get sick of acoustic guitar, along comes someone you have to
listen to and you feel better about the whole thing again. Rogers is such a performer."

--Graham Carlton, Midwest Record Recap [Evanston, IL]


"Dave Rogers takes acoustic music and songwriting to new heights or new depths or
sideways or something. Dave is truly one of a kind."

--Barry Smiler, Julie's Place Review [Berkeley, CA]


"A wonderful set of acoustic guitar solos done on the classical guitar. Very satisfying and
different."

--Chris Lunn, Victory Music Review [Seattle, WA]


"A folk-classical bootstrap-powered troubadour. Some jazz technique, Some brilliant playing,
some fun!"

--Eric Park, Woodlark Review [Sacramento, CA]

[End of Bio]

reviews

Please log in to review this album.

  • Not background - the tune's in the words, caught in the meaning
    author: Nancy Snider

    ENCOUNTERS ON THE WESTERN SLOPE Not quite background music this – start listening to the tune, realize it’s in the words and get caught up in the meaning. Dave Rogers uses his guitar as an accompaniment to the words, an emphasis to the meaning, and rarely picks out the tune. His gravely voice is somewhere between baritone and tenor, wavers sometimes and wobbles on high notes he can’t quite climb to. All 13 songs take you into the forests of the Western Slope with “Forest Cathedral” and “Spotted Owls and Loggers” the most evocative. “Name Dropper’s Rag” weaves 1960’s icons and odd words rhymed to a giggle in a logical plea to use who you know to your own advantage. “Bigfoot” is a tale of the gentle giant with rancid breath, headed to Alaska; the song combines magic mushrooms, the Nash Rambler and other reminders of the 1950s including flying saucers. Listen as you dine on pizza and beer, or key in mind-numbing data entry. Better yet give this album your full attention and let the images wander in your head. If Childe ballads and Lomax-recorded songs out of Appalachia were your idea of folk, Dave Rogers' songs are an admirable antidote, a look ‘round the rest of the country where life has a different perspective.

email

Please log in to email this artist.